Earlier this week, Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton received a very favorable ranking from Colin Cowherd of FOX Sports. Some people fairly questioned Payton checking in as the fourth-best NFL head coach in Cowherd's estimation because of the friendship shared between the two and the inherent bias.
On the polar opposite end of the spectrum, CBS Sports' Cody Benjamin ranked Payton as the 18th-best NFL head coach.
"There might not be a tougher coach to place, perhaps because Payton's become so polarizing. Once the vaunted leader of a hyper-efficient New Orleans Saints contender, he's managed a single playoff victory in his last four years as a head coach, and now he's resetting the table in Denver, likely with a rookie quarterback in Bo Nix," Benjamin wrote.
The truth of this issue, once again, falls somewhere between the poles. Any NFL offseason list, whether it's positions, players, coaches, power rankings — whatever — is arbitrary. Much like the age-old maxim 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' ranking coaches is an opinion-based, perception-oriented exercise of the whimsical.
The most accurate way to rank NFL head coaches is based on wins/losses from the year prior, the same way that playoff seeding works or the draft order. But even that wouldn't be totally accurate because there were coaches who out-kicked their coverage and overachieved in 2023 and other more proven veterans who underachieved.
Deducing which is which and where the margins of the gray areas lie, alas, is a matter of opinion. Now we're back to the arbitrary.
Credibility plays a role. CBS Sports is a credible outlet, and, thus, an NFL head coach ranking might carry more weight than, say, a fan blog. But this wasn't a roundtable poll of CBS analysts. This is one writer's opinion, no offense to Benjamin.
Is Payton a bottom-16 head coach in the NFL? Inquiring minds want to know, but most knowledgeable analysts would likely disagree. Even after a sub-.500 finish in Year 1 as Broncos head coach, my educated guess based on my contacts is that most former players and coaches in NFL media would say that No. 18 is a bit far down the totem pole for Payton.
But Benjamin does make a salient point, even if it turned out to be illogical within the grand scheme of his rankings. In the last four years as a head coach, Payton has delivered exactly one playoff victory. However, Benjamin has head coaches like Minnesota's Kevin O'Connell and Miami's Mike McDaniel ranked in the top 12, and they've combined for a grand total of zero playoff victories all-time, let alone over the past four or five years, so that argument collapsed in on itself.
The bottom line is that Payton landed in Denver with Mile High expectations, and did not deliver on them in Year 1. He inherited a team with a washed, ridiculously overpaid quarterback that hadn't won anything in the preceding seven years.
Since Super Bowl 50, the Broncos have become a national lampoon of sorts. It started with the NFL's humiliation of the Broncos during the pandemic season of 2020, forcing the team to play Payton's New Orleans Saints in Week 12 without a quarterback. The Broncos were four years out from the winner's circle by that point, and the NFL used them as a whipping boy and scapegoat, dragging John Elway's team out into the street and making an example of them relative to the league's social distancing and contact tracing requirements of the pandemic season.
When Russell Wilson arrived, the lampooning reached new levels of ridiculousness, and in a way, Payton fed into that in his first year in Denver. It was bad enough to start out the season 1-5, but to lose to the Miami Dolphins 70-20, relinquishing the most points and yards in an NFL game since the 1960s, only intensified the lampooning and further degradation of the Broncos' national clout.
Payton's decision to bench Wilson with two games left to go was controversial, and when the free-agent quarterback he touted during the offseason — Jarrett Stidham — failed to palpably move the Broncos' offensive needle, further doubts about his head-coaching wherewithal began to take root across the NFL. But lost among those two negative 2023 storylines were Payton's achievements.
Not only did Payton improve on the Broncos' record by three wins in Year 1, but he overcame that 1-5 start by going on a five-game winning streak and making his team competitively relevant down the stretch. It was all for naught, as Wilson imploded in two must-win December games (Detroit & New England) and the Broncos ended up missing the playoffs for an eighth straight year.
No one in the national press ever mentions how Payton also turned around Denver's injury fortunes in Year 1. The Broncos finished the 2022 season with the most salary-cap dollars sitting on injured reserve and ranked dead-last in adjusted games lost (to injury).
In 2023, the Broncos jumped to No. 12 in adjusted games lost to injury. That's a massive course correction over the course of one year, and it's thanks to Payton's savvy decisions to hire Beau Lowery as V.P. of player health & performance, and Dan Dalrymple as strength and conditioning coach.
Let's also not forget that Payton finally got the Kansas City Chiefs monkey off the Broncos' back. The Chiefs had won 16 straight games vs. the Broncos, and Payton finally ended that ignominious streak with a convincing Week 8 victory.
On an individual level, as painful as it was to watch Wilson try to operate Payton's "hyper-efficient" offense, to coin Benjamin's phrase, the veteran coach's experience, and golden quarterback resume still came out in the wash for the Broncos. Wilson may have taken 45 sacks and fumbled 10 times in 2023, but he passed for 26 touchdowns with just eight interceptions, improving over the 55 sacks the year prior, 15 touchdowns, and 11 picks. His QB rating also improved under Payton from 84.4 (2022) to 98.0.
Wilson's 26 touchdown passes were the most by as Broncos quarterback since Peyton Manning's 39 in 2014. The next highest was 18 touchdowns post-Manning, a mark shared by Case Keenum (2018) and Teddy Bridgewater (2021).
It's neither here nor there, but wanna know what the Broncos' single-season passing touchdown record was before Manning arrived? 27. It was shared by Elway (1997) and Jake Plummer (2004). That puts Wilson's 26 touchdowns in a completely different light, no?
NFL fans (and writers) are accustomed to the 'Star Wars numbers' of the NFL, so 26 touchdowns isn't something that jumps off a year-end box score. But analyzed within the scope of recent history, you can see how Payton raised Wilson's ship in just one season working with him.
It obviously wasn't enough. Payton knew that, which is why he pulled the plug on Wilson.
Payton that releasing the nine-time Pro Bowler would come with a punitive cost to the Broncos' salary cap, triggering an NFL-record $85 million dead-money hit to the franchise. That dead money will be absorbed between the 2024 and 2025 seasons, but in the meantime, Payton exorcised the Wilson demon, starting over at quarterback with his own handpicked first-rounder, Bo Nix.
The Takeaway
If anything, Benjamin's ranking of Payton is a reflection of the increased pressure he's under to deliver in Year 2. The extreme ups and downs of his first year in Denver and the controversial way that it ended relative to Wilson dispensed with Payton's honeymoon phase.
Maybe it could have lasted another year or so had 2023 shaken out a bit differently. Payton's not on scholarship. Duh. Like he needs a lesson in that NFL reality. He definitely not losing sleep over how he's perceived by the national media.
“I think that I have two middle fingers," Payton said back in June. "I’ve gotten better with age [at] not using them. (laughs) Really paying attention to your gut, your experience and what you’re seeing. Those are the things that drive me now.”
Broncos Country is restless for a winning season, and it would seem the NFL at large has completely written this team off. That's okay. Let 'em sleep.
